More Gladwell

Blink:  The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, an admirable follow-up to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (see August 24 entry), is an engaging analysis of human cognition.  In Blink, Gladwell presents the idea of "thin-slicers"--that is, individuals who make instantaneous judgments and decisions about other people and situations.  He provides numerous examples to demonstrate how this sort of decision making is often more intuitive and more accurate than that which which has been researched and analyzed.  For example, he presents the story of a fake Kouros (an ancient Greek sculpture) which deceived one team of art experts who'd spent months studying it; or a psychologist who can determine with 95% accuracy whether a married couple will divorce simply by watching an hour-long video of them engaging in conversation.  The engrossing examples go on and on--some of them demonstrating the positive power of thin-slicing, while others demonstrate its potential flaws.  As usual, Gladwell flawlessly connects all of these examples to build a clear argument that's socially and culturally relevant.